Collateral Damage

by James Bird

  The Thing I Fear the Most

  I sensed it first, heard a dull thump and the bus jumped and quaked; the effects delivered sure as judgment, quick as a snap of a guitar string. I startled awake with a gasp and spontaneous jerk. Harsh scrapping and crunching with squeals of tortured metal and the muffled explosions of glass. The rapid deceleration tossed me forward into the seat back, then bounced hard against my own seat and eventually heaped to the floor. On the way down, I hit my head just behind my left ear on the sill. Squeezed my eyes in pain and saw bright specks like a swarm of lightening bugs against a black sky.

  Violent shaking accompanied by a grating screech of tires against reluctant pavement, the great motor, for moment accelerated to high RPM screaming like a jet and at once died. Screams and cries filtered through, creating a crescendo of terror. In an instant we had stopped. A dampened jolting pop and thud behind the bus. More sickening thumps and thuds further away, the sounds of metal slapping meat. A second of breathless silence followed by more cries and rapid excited talk. I felt the bus move slightly and began settling as if it where sinking to the bottom of a muddy chasm. A sound of a slow crunch like crushing a can in my hand.

  I lay still, taking inventory, forcing in a breath, waiting for the pain. Opened my eyes, I saw the blurry roof; my reading glasses had somehow remained balanced on my face. I dragged myself onto the bench removed my glasses. I could see now. I tended to my pack, shouldered it and stood slowly, determining my state of intactness. The bus at a peculiar angle, as if it were going up a curve, made for awkward walking. An emergency exit window hung a jar, swung outward. Debris strewn about, papers, books, coffee mugs, and a bicycle helmet. The air smelt of burnt motor oil and diesel. Thin rancid smoke of burnt rubber swirled, caught by the sun's low rays. Cars around the bus stopped in various degrees of disarray many completely off the road and trapped next to the barrier, occupants unable to get out. People jogging through the tangled mess. I was unable to see behind the bus, smoke veiled the view out the front windshield.

  The redheaded guitar player two rows ahead of me had jammed hard under the seat. His ankle broken. I helped him as he cursed mightily I pulled him out to the aisle. His foot pointing outward at a sick angle. I got him back to the seat and sat his guitar case next to him.

  He sat, coughed, “What the hell! Jesus, what the hell!” He had a small cut on his right cheek from the frame of his broken glasses.

  “I don’t know yet man. We got hit,” I looked in to his angry eyes. “Your leg is broken. Don’t move. I'll be back, I got to check on somebody,” I said. I rubbed the back of my head where I smacked the seat.

  I moved forward other riders leaning on their hands squinting out the windows heads swaying to see that damage. I did not see Bonnie. The lower half of a middle aged man hanging from the emergency exit window, his legs scissoring trying to wiggle out. A woman outside reaching her arms toward him. I coughed the vile taste rubber and oil and continued. I overheard excited talk and car doors slam. Someone pounding on the side of the bus. A horn blared near. I got to Bonnie, about halfway toward the door of the bus. She lay across the seat holding her wrist her hair draped to the floor her legs drawn to her chest. She was looking down her hair covering face. Her arm cocked at an angle where no joint exists. People kept bumping into me in their hurry to get to the door.

  I knelt, “Damn, You alright Bonnie? Hang on girl. Someone will be here soon.” Instinctively, I put my caressed her shoulder she was shaking. The skin on the arm was not broken. I leaned in to see if she suffered from anything else. She began to stir the color was gone from her face. “Oh Rhet,” she whispered.

  I looked at the floor; this is tough, I thought and sighed. It reminded me of the time I saw a teammate break his leg on the football field. The illness in the stomach. The team crowded around him, his screams made us turn or heads and cover our mouths. The stands quiet they heard his screams too. I did not want Bonnie to scream like that.

  I imagined her anguish over what she must have seen. From her vantage, she had a clear view out the front window. Bonnie must have witnessed the incident helpless and afraid. I looked forward, people were in a panic trying to get out. The aisle like a debarking airplane late for connecting flights. Heads bobbing outside the front of the bus. The driver appeared motionless a commotion of passengers around her, a female voice barked out orders to “make room and give us some air!” I turned to see the other side the light better here away from the sun’s glare. Wrecked cards strewn about like a crowded parking lot with one exit. I sat Bonnie’s helmet on the seat.

  “Can you sit up Bonnie? Do you hurt anywhere else?”

  “No, umm…” She was breathing hard. “God it was horrible” That poor …” She started to cry but held it back. “My arm hurts”. Her eyes squinting hard. “I don’t ... know… umm”. She coughed and leaned back holding her arm against her waist. I studied her face, the gentle curve of her jaw line. The high cheek bones and button nose. She glanced down at her arm, and I saw the neat part of her hair, just off center right that covered that side of her face. She usually had it tied back but not today. I looked at Bonnie the injured woman not the silly mysterious girl in marketing. She looked into my eyes searching, personal. A desperate intimacy pleading in a way, vulnerable. Sad. She pursed her lips and shivered.

  “Sorry. I have no coat, I'll get help soon,” I said trying to read her. It was coming, I knew, I had been here before that little pang in the gut. I have always been a sucker for damsel in distress and usually come away with an emotional attachment. I didn’t want this, not now, not this way. I clenched my jaw. “You’ll be alright. There's a guy there with a busted leg”. I motioned with my chin like Native American’s do. Bonnie shook her head.

  Other people queuing in front forming a tight pack. Somebody bumped my foot. I looked at Bonnie and bit my lower lip. I rubbed the back of her neck, warm and moist. She rose her hair draped over my arm. The color had drained from her face, she took a deep breath and winced.

  “I'll be alright,” she said, hushed and resigned. Women are tough, I thought. They have high pain tolerance for childbirth. She began speaking in quick spurts, “I saw the wreck … what happened … it was so quick! … We hit that car really hard, she turned toward the window. “It just disappeared. We hit the…” Her voice trailing off her head shaking. I sensed she didn’t want to describe what she saw, the horror of it. She glanced toward the front again closing her eyes tightly and leaned against me. I put my arm around her. I was nervous, first date nervous. Bonnie was calm now and we sat silently for a few minutes. I did not want to say anything before she did. I wanted Bonnie to deflate to know that she would be safe that everything would be better soon. I wanted her to see what I saw. The two of us eating lunch in a café in Boulder or a few drinks at the Irish pub anything but the awfulness outside, the broken people and pain. The dreadful memories she will carry the rest of her life. I wanted this moment right now to be a good memory one she will want to keep not forced by events out her control. I wanted her to sense safety in my arms. I felt her head move against my chest, her body expanding when she breathed.

  She reached to unclasp her fanny pack.

  “Here, let me do that. You stay still.” I unbuckled it while she held on to my shirt, tugging it. She cleared her throat. I saw her face peering at me and she put her arm on my shoulder so that I could reach the pack. I pulled it around and put it on my lap. She reached down and unzipped it.

  “I can help. What’d you need?”

  “That’s OK, I get it,” her voice was calmer.

  Her hand digging in the pack, I rubbed her back. She was still probing, I detected things moving, her fingers exploring her fanny pack on my lap.

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to do that?” I said and rolled my hips. I rested my chin on my hand and surveyed out the window to take my mind off sensation in my groin, it didn’t work. I tried to think of her entry in the employee contact sheet. I tried to think of the
few projects we worked. I lost my concentration by her hand moving in the pack on my lap.

  “Bonnie, I…”

  “I need my phone … call my sister,” she said in a voice soft as a lover’s.

  I laid my hand on hers to help find the phone. I was sure she didn’t know what she was doing to me. If she kept at it much longer she would. I grinned at the irony. I avoided looking at her twisted arm. It was not a terrible break but bad enough to snap me back. Bonnie found her phone in time and sat.

  “Alright. I'll make sure somebody comes soon. Hold your arm still in your lap. It’ll be good. They’re coming soon, I can hear them,” I said.

  “Thanks, I have a jacket on my bike” She was calmer now and trying to smile. She shivered.

  “I’ll get it for you. I’ll be right back.”

  Bonnie gave me an expression of which I had never seen from her. It froze me for a second. She was no longer the cute mysterious woman in marketing. She was Bonnie with a broken arm, I cared for her. I desperately wanted to help her. I wanted to get to know her, to carry her off this bus in my arms and away from this mess. To heal her arm with a magic wand and take her to diner. I smiled at her, “Let me get out of here. It’ll be a bit of a struggle, something’s going on toward front. ”

  I patted her shoulder slid to the aisle and moved forward. My throat tight my mouth dry. The aisle blocked nobody exiting. I was struck by a tinge of anxiety. I crooked my head to check on Bonnie, her brows crossed in concerned. I smiled and nodded my head. I forced my way towards the front stepping over the seats. I made it to the second row. Out the front of the bus the smoke and fading light made little sense of the carnage. Vague human forms scampering in confusion. Patches of colors fading in and out. I noticed the driver slumped over the wheel. They, as far as I knew, do not wear a shoulder harness, I never checked.

  The driver was a tall elegant black woman, with sharp carved lines and relaxed hair. She had serious eyes and always displayed a slight mischievous cocky smirk. She was one of the better EXPRESS drivers, never running over curbs, graceful and gentle with the brakes. Below me the two Mexican women were crumpled on the floor in front of their seats their small bodies intertwined. The wine-cheeked woman who sat next to the thin man was tiring to comfort them. I looked toward the driver. She had smacked hard and was lying across the wheel, bleeding slightly from her mouth and nose. I thought best not to move her.

  The thin man staggering toward me, babbling words I did not understand at first. He held tightly on the seat back, swaying circularly a scarlet-red welt forming on his forehead. There was a small drop of blood working its way from his left ear. Someone was down on the steps trying to kick the door open.

  The thin man continued to say things like “Marty! We got to get corn, don't forget the corn! Marty!” And so on. His thick eyebrows arched in the middle, his deep-set eyes piercing hard down the long thin bridge of his nose. He looked straight through me. A stuck car horn stabbed my ears, the sounds of sirens wailing the distance. I wanted this frantic madness to go away. I wanted to go back to Bonnie. She should be out for a ride I should be in the pub drinking whiskey and stout and talking football. I don’t want to pull mangled bodies out of burning cars or dealing with an underfed semi-conscience Ukrainian refugee.

  Marty, apparently the thin man's woman was still on the floor with the Mexicans. One was moving gently, crossing herself, and speaking in rapid Spanish through a broken and bloody mouth to the other, who did not respond nor move. The driver leaned back in her seat. The door successfully opened several people began moving forward. I placed my fingers on Marty’s back.

  “You might want to sit him down,” I said pointing toward the thin man, “I believe he has a concussion.” Her eyes widened as she turned to evaluate her companion. She sprang to her feet.

  “Eric!” she held him by his left elbow. “Eric, you must sit down you're hurt. Please Eric, please sit down!” Eric, not showing promising signs of total comprehension, crumpled heavily onto a seat his hand still clutching the back, his eyes fixed on a point only he saw. “I’m a nurse,” she said, glancing quick and hard at me.

  “I'll see about some water, or err, blankets and …” I fumbled for words. Then regaining my composure, “There's a guy with a busted foot or something back there” I thumbed toward the rear. The redheaded man was sitting upright in the aisle talking on a cell phone. He scowled and gave a thumbs-up. Marty glanced around me. “And that girl has a messed up arm,” pointing toward Bonnie, who sat quietly, starring out the window with a blank far-away stare her phone to her ear. “I don't know about anyone else.” I turned and surveyed the commuters. Quasimodo was now lumbering between the seats, grimacing, grabbing a back with each step. He was limping.

  “Go get help!” Marty snapped. Then softer “Make sure the EMTs know we got hurt people here,” she swept her hand vaguely then gently grabbed my arm. “Tell them…we have…” she paused looking at the thin man then the Mexican woman, “Just hurry, tell them to hurry!”

  I stepped around Marty toward the door. The sirens were loud, a state trooper went flying along the shoulder, the car with the stuck horn still blaring its maddening monotone, loud shouts, smoke, noise, rushing people. The bus driver was moving, dialing a cell phone rubbing the side of her face. She made a gesture with her right arm.

  I turned to leave, surprised to see that I had to leap out the door; the stoop was four feet from the ground. I hoped down. The pavement was warm there was glass everywhere, crunching like tiny sea shells as I stepped. Vapors of diesel and the sickly-sweet almond odor of coolant hissed from the cars. A noxious cocktail of steam and smoke whiffed around like cool low country morning mist. I turned around; the bus had run over a small car, angled at the sky, poised as a missile ready to launch from a back of a military truck. The car, flattened, unrecognizable, sky blue roof and windows invisible, tires flat, wheels pushed into the body, black-orange viscous fluids trickling out in small searching streams. Behind the car for several yards hideous gouging black and white scrapes dug into the hard concrete that told of this small car's final moment. The bus hunched on top, its huge tires off the ground and bowed around as if it were trying to scoop up the tiny car and carry it home. A strange maternal affect. I winced at the fate of the occupants remembering that crunch realizing it was the last agonizing moments of their lives.

  I helped several people down from the bus. A cab driver appeared and began to help the debarking process. He had been a few cars behind and able to swerve off the road. With a grunt, we both lifted Quasimodo down to the ground as though we were struggling with a futon mattress on a flight of spiral stairs. Glass and debris crunched and crackled under our feet. I patted him on his shoulder has he hobbled off, aided by the cabbie. Thin man was next, guided by Marty from above he had a queer empty mien. One of the Mexican women appeared at the door, she held a bloody cloth to her chin and clutched the doorframe.

  “Give me your hand,” I said. She reached out while I grasped her forearm firmly with my left and cradled her in my right arm and lifted her out and down. Her skin pale brown, spotted and deeply wrinkled. Her hair white as cotton, wisped in the breeze. She was remarkably light as if filled with air. She was quivering while I walked a few steps and gently set her on her feet.

  “Gracias, Señor.” She pushed me away with her arm. I sensed she felt shame that a strange man touched her.

  “De nada. Are you alright? Stay here,” I said. She leaned against the back of a car glancing sideways toward the bus. She began crying, holding the cloth to her mouth raising her other arm to the top of her head. Her eyes where wide and surprised. I turned and for the first time take in the magnitude the Hollywood surrealism scene.

  Bonnie's bike survived the impact and I drew her wind breaker from the saddle bag and a water bottle from the frame. I felt like I was rummaging around in her purse, her private area. I bounded back into the bus and back to Bonnie, my heart pounding against the meat in my chest. Bonnie l
eaning forward against the seat with her head rest resting on her good arm, the one in the pack, the other across her lap. I sat next to her. She seemed small, balled up like a child.

  “Hey, you good?” I said.

  She nodded without lifting her head. I covered her with the wind breaker and pulled her hair through and smoothed it down her back. I put my arm around her shoulders and leaned forward. “I’ll go for help now,” I said in a low comforting voice. I lay the water bottle beside her. She nodded her head her hair moving. Her breathing level her eyes without shock. “Is there is anything I can do for you?” Bonnie turned her head, our faces were even. It was like we were lying in bed. I wanted to kiss her. I stroked the side of her face. Our eyes focused on that place where the soul begins, where words unspoken and knowing. She sighed and smiled at me without showing teeth the corners curved. Her soft light hair framing her gentle face, the faint freckles aligned across her nose like the Milky Way on a clear night. Her blue eyes moving side to side, slow blinks that uncovered a different communication. As if she were a child sweeping a bubble wand in the spring air the next bubble bigger more color reflecting from the sun. Alive and floating. I tucked her hair around her small ear, put my hand on her face. A face that you wake next to for the first time. I was experiencing the thing I fear the most the realization I had to give in and lose a part of myself and the possibility of no return. This picture of her face that beautiful face the physical touching the tension and uncertainty the yearning mixed into one truth. That one perfect moment in a lifetime and no matter how many times you try, it never comes again.

  “I’ll make sure somebody gets here quick,” I wanted to change the subject that was on my mind. I’d have preferred to have asked her what she wanted for breakfast.

  She whispered, “Thank you so much, you’re so sweet,” her smile relaxed she closed her eyes.

  I straightened her hair, “I’ll be back; somebody will be here soon.”

  I looked back at guitar man he was lying back his arms across his forehead.

  “I’m going for help, stay put.” I yelled to him. He gave me another thumbs up. The bus driver was kneeling next to the Mexican woman. She had a medical kit next to her.

  World’s Greatest Grandmother

  I made it back down off the bus, “This is no coincidence. Bonnie, this terrible mess,” I said to myself shaking my head. The sirens were loud now. I looked up. A woman in a long blue denim dress and white lose knit sweater stood against the cement barrier just ahead of the bus. Her hands clasped over her mouth and nose, her eyes red brimmed, she was trembling, her hands and face a palsy of grief, staring into a dark blue sedan. The car had been caught between the bus and a small panel truck. The momentum of the bus, perched on top of a little car, unable to brake the progress, slammed into the sedan crushing it as I would an aluminum can. The trunk completely smashed and the back seats jammed forward, occupying the space where the front seats should be. There was a man frantically trying the open the driver’s side door. I walked to the passenger side and tried the handle then looked in. A picture of horror, a woman, appearing about fiftyish, caught in a moment of ultimate surprise and terror, crushed in a death grip. Sitting straight up and forward, her steering wheel gouged deep into her lower ribcage and abdomen, severing her nearly in two. Her lap and thighs covered in a dark wet. Her milky expression captured the ephemeral moment, her eyes bulged out, gaping at finality, mouth wide open as if she where witnessing a fantastic feat of athleticism. Her hand lay limp on the seat at her side. She seemed animated, as if at any second she would snap into life and begin showing me pictures of her family. From the rear view mirror hung a gold heart on a chain, the words “World’s Greatest Grandma” were scripted across the heart in red.

  A fire truck roared to a stop on the other side of the barrier a rescue vehicle followed on its heels, its rescuers deployed en masse' spreading out among the carnage. I gave the door handle a last tug and backed away feeling wretched and dirty. A fireman scooted under the bus to inspect the little car; he shouted something to another fireman who shouted something into a walky-talky. Another approached the dark blue sedan carrying a large pry bar. She was medium height, dark, large eyes, nose and mouth, with a thick braid of brown hair hanging to her middle back. Pretty in a tomboy way with the hands of a man, veined and strong, her face sporting a grim determined air, her small frame swallowed in a grungy yellow fireman's coat. Her eyes, seeing the ghastly horror, widened for an instant then narrowed to confront the door. I kept backing, the golden heart twinkling in the lights.

  Ten yards ahead, a dark-colored sports vehicle lay on its side, its motor running, its back tires spinning, and the whole thing wobbling like a dog with an itch. Smoke puffing from its exhaust. The horn was still blaring, incessantly screaming its mechanical confusion. More sirens, patrol cars, fire trucks, tow trucks, all moving about frantically, descending on our island of anguish. Overhead a helicopter circled low, a small airplane was making an approach to Jeff Co airport.

  Down the road toward Denver cars sat shuffled about as though tossed by gambler throwing dice. A refrigerated seafood truck lay on its side. The prison bus turned sideways but still upright. There appeared to be a scuffle inside. There was a woman, on the shoulder next to a crunched horse trailer, in beige cowboy hat, trying to calm a horse pulling in quick jerks. Frantically snapping its head back against its bit, pulling, one of its back legs raised so to not put wait on it, terrified and hysterical. The woman tried to blind the horse by putting her hat over its eyes. Closer, a motorcycle on its side, sitting against it a helmeted rider with his head in his hands, his jeans torn and bloody at the thigh and knee. Two EMTs were running toward him. The scene was one of organized desperation with pockets of triage bordered by living statues of the dazed. Animated men and women standing next their cars talking on cell phone. The rescue people pushing stretchers like on a competition shopping spree. In the distance, a dark figure was running across the field.

  In between gust of the receding wind, spirals of smoke and steam would twist and swoop, reflecting a pulsating yellow, red and blue from the flashing lights. The air sharp, everything was sharp. The ground sticky goo, I didn’t want to touch anything, I wanted to fly away with Bonnie. Motors idled and generators hummed, a sound of a chainsaw erupted. Voices crackled over radios. An ambulance swooped in on the shoulder. I motioned toward the bus and barked that people were hurt in a commanding voice. A woman in a uniform hoped out the back and began retrieving gear, snapping open compartments, extracting instruments of their grim trade. She bounded into the bus followed by another. I joined a small group of six, forming at the side of the ambulance, helpless and overcome. Nausea crept up my throat. A county deputy stood a few yards away, his hand on his gun and the other keying his mic on his shoulder. We stood silent; someone finally disconnected that awful horn. Almost instantly, I could breathe easier and see clearer. The recuse workers tossed a gray-green tarp over the truncated sedan. An EMT began handing out bottled water and told us to stay. I took a drink; my hands were shaking. I felt as if I were swallowing a tennis ball. I began to shiver. I spat a coppery taste of phlegm and leaned back against the ambulance. I wondered if this was how people reacted that day a month ago in New York and Arlington. The terror, the unknowing, the shock to system. To see the unimaginable. To be a part of a thing that changed everyone involved and by extension to those not. What emotions hit them when they open the door and their family rushes to them clinging.

  We walked back to the side of the bus. Three news helicopters circling above, and a medevac landing in a field. There was a stretcher by the bus door. The bust driver and two EMTs brought the other Mexican woman out on a back board and loaded her on a stretcher and wheeled her to the ambulance. She was not moving. Her friend walked beside her. Bonnie came next led by an EMT. She had a temporary air cast. She gave me a small smile. I saw that gaze in her eyes. My heart jumped. She stopped and I moved toward her. She looked around that the wrecked
cars, the excited people and the helicopters. She blink her eyes from the smoke her expression like she had emerged from a dark cave. I took her fanny pack and led her away by the arm.

  “Can you take her to a hospital? The ambulance is full,” the EMT said his voice muffled by the noise. “I don’t think it is a serious break but she needs a doctor,”

  “I was on this bus,” I tilted my head and looked at Bonnie. “I’ll make sure she gets there,” in a steady voice.

  “Good,” He said and trotted off toward the car on its side. Firemen were cutting the roof, they moved fast. A group of on lookers had gathered around like culinary exhibition with a chainsaw. Talking and pointing, squatting down to get a better view. Two EMTs standing next to a stretcher.

  The cabbie came and a deal was struck. The driver seemed sad, old and tired. Leathery face and a hard guise. I looked over at his cab, Anytime Boulder Cab Company.

  “You work for Sam Manual?”

  “Yeah,” he said in a gruff voice. “I was his first driver,” he looked me hard in the eyes when he said this. He looked tough as a street fighter or boxer. He opened the door for Bonnie. The cabbie said he will take Bonnie to the hospital, free. I retrieved Bonnie's bike and the cabbie put it his trunk. I went to the side of the cab leaned in to talk, “You going to be all right? Would you like me to come with you?” I said.

  “Is it alright, my sister is there. It does hurt so badly now … Can I call you tonight when I get home?” she said her voice was clear. She had a hopeful expression.

  “Absolutely.”

  I watched the cab drive away. I became lonely, I wished to be home to wait for her call. I leaned back against the ambulance I was completely drained like after a difficult motorcycle race, where I narrowly avoided several wrecks. I wanted to concentrate on Bonnie. My feelings for her and what made sense of this horrific day. This thinking made me happy. I kept my mind there. The ambulance behind me vibrating from the engine. The air still smelled of almonds. The helicopters whump whum whump above. The sirens were silent. People talking, radios crackling the random noises of busy people. I closed my eyes and saw Bonnie’s face next to mine.